Charlotte Observer: Miami Back in Big East (Updated @ 12:45pm)

'08 Football Media25

Sunday’s print edition of The Charlotte Observer included a few pages of college football coverage. 50% of page 17C was devoted to NC State Football with three articles – two of which had been run in the N&O and on ACCNow in the days before Sunday.

The other 50% of page 17C was devoted to college football’s “National Outlook”. At the bottom of the page they had a section labeled “Big East”.

Guess the big news coming out of the “Big East” over the weekend?

“University of Miami quarterback Robert Marve was told Friday that he has been suspended for the season opener against Charleston Southern….”

Wow. You can see the online version of this by clicking here.

I don’t know if this is a direct result of the recent consolidation and changes at the Charlotte Observer/News & Observer or just more incompetence from the Charlotte Observer…but that is just sad.

In some related ‘newspaper news’ it was announced last week that, “Frank Dascenzo is retiring from the Durham Herald-Sun, ending a 39-year run with the paper. The longtime columnist is getting out while Paxton Media Group, owner of the Herald-Sun, continues to cut staff and suffer dwindling paper circulation.”

850’s BuzzBlog has more and also discusses some very important recent changes in coverage at the N&O.

The News & Observer promoted Carolina Hurricanes beat writer Luke DeCock to columnist and shifted assignments for Chip Alexander and Ken Tysiac. These moves were inevitable after the Charlotte Observer and the N&O combined newsrooms. Alexander, who has worked at the N&O since 1979, will move from NC State coverage to the Canes. Tysiac will go from Charlotte’s all-around ACC guy to the Wolfpack beat.

Few writers are more in tune with their beat and as connected than Chip Alexander was at NC State. I know that it is popular to criticize the N&O, but the trio of Alexander, Caulton Tudor, and JP Giglio couldn’t be much better.

Conversely, we’ve made no secret of our feelings of frustration related to Tysiac in the past, so there is no reason to re-hash them in too much detail here. He is not from Tobacco Road and therefore has a more modern knowledge base of the local schools.

Additionally, Tysiac chose to place his obvious admiration of Herb Sendek above a commitment to understanding the situation from more than one perspective. This led to an unfair misinterpretation of our fan base during the Sendek years. Conversely, the N&O actually handled the Sendek years fairly well with Caulton Tudor leading the way with occassional articles that were based on a much more complex understanding of the situation than any other writer in the ACC. There was a BIG DIFFERENCE in the tone and content of the two papers during those years.

HOPEFULLY, covering NC State will force Tysiac to generate some positive perspectives of the Wolfpack that will smooth out his coverage and occasional condescending tone that feels more like Greg Doyel than journalists who actually command some respect.

To be fair, Tysiac’s print articles and posting on ACCNow since taking over the Wolfpack beat have been both abundant and of high quality during the first month of this new coverage model. I hope that it continues and we can develop a mutual appreciation for each other. If he keeps up the great work then things will be fine.

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'08 Football Media

25 Responses to Charlotte Observer: Miami Back in Big East (Updated @ 12:45pm)

  1. howlie 08/25/2008 at 9:13 AM #

    “To be fair, Tysiac’s print articles and posting on ACCNow have been abundant and good during the first month of this new coverage model. I hope that it continues.”

    Ditto.
    He needs to understand that with Dascenzo gone, there is NO writer in the state of NC [Wilmington/Fayetteville area excluded] who covers NC State. He is IT. He needs to focus on the positive and not let the ‘sour-cynic sportsbeat psyche’ default kick-in.
    If it does, he buries himself and his employer.

  2. Ismael 08/25/2008 at 9:26 AM #

    the tysiac articles so far are just too fluffy, they are getting better i’ll give him some credit. Chip Alexander had some very nice articles last year, not because they built NCSU up, just that the style, the depth of content, etc. were good.

    I still see Robbi Pickeral is doing UNC, not a bad writer, i just hate her by association.

    Ive asked her is Butchy still making the guy performing the best in practice wear that yellow jersey, what a dumb idea; i havent’ gotten a response back.

  3. LRM 08/25/2008 at 9:41 AM #

    Do people still read newspapers?

    In all seriousness, Alexander has done a tremendous job relating to State fans and while we don’t always agree with Tudor, he’s without question in tune with the ACC. The recent transition period has seemed awkward — and not just Sports, but in general, especially State & Local — and it’s been frustrating just how little coverage there has been the past few weeks of college football in general, but particularly State, especially since the Olympics coverage is all wire service reporting.

  4. SuperStuff 08/25/2008 at 10:51 AM #

    Ken Tysiac’s articles in relation to the Pack since he’s taken over the last few months have been fine. I have no beefs with what he’s written.

  5. Oldwolf 08/25/2008 at 10:51 AM #

    you can find the article at:

    http://www.charlotteobserver.com/sports/story/147743.html

  6. Ismael 08/25/2008 at 11:27 AM #

    superstuff, IMO, i just don’t see the quality of articles from Tysiac as Alexander had last year.

    Overall though, the N&O has done, i think a poor job in hyping up this football season. If for no other reason, im surprised they haven’t had more articles about UNX-CH since they were picked 2nd in their division. I think Tudor, Giglio et al know the heels better than alot of the other ACC writers and realize they are a long ways from #2 even if on proverbial paper.

    Last year they had that nice series on Butchy and TOB, surprised their’s not some kind of followup on that.

  7. wolfpacker420 08/25/2008 at 12:03 PM #

    really excited about the game Thursday, we have a bit of a surprise for the gamecocks it seems. However on a basketball tip Marques Johnson has decided to transfer to georgia state. This now opens another scholarship for the 09 season. Nail down another top recruit and we’re golden Lowe…go get em!

  8. wufpaxno1 08/25/2008 at 12:19 PM #

    wolfpacker420, The Marques Johnson transfer was covered in a good thread on 8/13, check it out.

  9. Noah 08/25/2008 at 1:01 PM #

    Local papers are basically slashing their papers to the point where the only people who subscribe are the people who would subscribe to a mast and an empty page. And some coupons. And the crosswords, don’t mess with the crosswords.

    It’s the the AP Observer.

  10. tcthdi-tgsf-twhwtnc 08/25/2008 at 1:23 PM #

    I was reading the new Midtown news freebie that is thrown in the yard. Inside some columnist wrote a long article about not using plastic bags. She encouraged people to carry their lemons and limes and place them directly in the cart where mom’s place their baby’s butts. OK i added the baby butt part but if you put food in that top section you are eating some nasty stuff.

    Back to my point… The Midtown news is delivered to 16,000 houses all in little plastic bags. I would have to buy lemons everyday for the next 44 years to equal one day of just the Midtown delivery not to mention the regular N&O. When I was a kid I had a route and we used rubber bands unless it was raining.

  11. EverettBeez 08/25/2008 at 1:35 PM #

    I agree Noah – the papers are gutting their print editions. My local Editor-in-Chief explained that people have less time, so they want briefer stories. Right. People who say that don’t read the paper. Cutting back content, consolidating newsrooms, etc, might make short term bottom line sense, but if you destroy the product, the reason you are different from on-line sources, you will lose reader. Period.

    I just turned down tickets to see Jacksonville State play GTech in Atlanta on Thursday night. I’ll miss the great savior of Jax State football’s premier (Perilleux) so I can stay home and watch THE PACK on high def!

  12. Noah 08/25/2008 at 2:19 PM #

    All of these newspaper chains should get out of the stock market business. They should break up their newspaper holdings and sell them back to local interests.

    You can make a good buck by owning the local newspaper. However, in 10 years, the only growth you’re going to see is basic COLA growth. It’s like owning the local savings & loan.

    When people start consolidating these things and trying to turn them into an industry that grows 10 percent every quarter and makes everyone with stock options a millionaire….usually bad things happen.

    Regarding plastic bags, I bring canvas bags when I go to the grocery store. I get a little discount from the store and I don’t end up with several thousand useless bags. That stuff doesn’t end up in the local garbage dump, it’s too light. The wind picks it up and it ultimately, it ends up in the Great Garbage Patch, a floating mess of 3.5 million tons of garbage that’s roughly the size of Texas.

  13. kool k 08/25/2008 at 2:52 PM #

    Season 5 of “The Wire” focused a lot on the current state of newspapers today: budget cuts, buyouts, bias, etc.

    Great show if you haven’t ever seen it. Check it out if you get a chance. McNulty would have been a State fan.

  14. Astral Rain 08/25/2008 at 3:25 PM #

    If we could send Miami and BC to the Big East in a package Deal, and get maybe South Carolina in Return- conference would be much better off.

    I’d love to see conferences capped at 11 Members- you could so easily do a BCS playoff with that. 6 BCS Conferences, a superconferenced MWC+WAC hybrid+ one spot for other schools

  15. choppack1 08/25/2008 at 3:34 PM #

    Actually kool k – if NC State were a city – it would be Baltimore.

  16. packalum44 08/25/2008 at 4:13 PM #

    south carolina sucks in b-ball

  17. howlie 08/25/2008 at 4:26 PM #

    Just out of curiousity, how has ‘Chip-on-the-shoulder’ done “a good job of relating to State fans?”

    For the last five years his articles looked like slander from The Daily Tarheel.

  18. Primewolf 08/25/2008 at 6:13 PM #

    Ken T is still on my watch list. For example, in his article late last week (Thur), we brought up a question to SC, wondering if “TOB was using gamemanship since he hadn’t handed over the roster yet.” The fact was the Roster wasn’t due until Friday and TOB delivered that day. further, I haven’t seen anything from Kenny boy that asks why SC sent a roster with 12 offensive starting positions.

    The point is, little Robbi, has never ever asked or inferred anything except Carolina kool aid in her articles. I can’t stand to read them because they are so obviously slanted to further the cause and coverup any issues.

    I know Ken T will never promote NCSU, so all we can hope for is objectivity. Robbi needs to move on to a real job, surely she tires of the baby blue crap. How about an article on how Carolina admits all the nonqualifiers and dolts and they make perfect 3.0s or better. State has smarter players and we still can’t keep them or get them in school.

  19. phillypacker 08/25/2008 at 7:11 PM #

    Dewitt committed to Missouri, according to The Wolfpacker.

  20. MatSci94 08/25/2008 at 9:19 PM #

    “It’s like owning the local savings & loan.”

    Except the government won’t bail you out if you make stupid business decisions 😉

  21. highstick 08/25/2008 at 9:35 PM #

    Packalum, we’ve sorta sucked too at BBall!

  22. gcpack 08/25/2008 at 10:18 PM #

    I agree with you Howlie. Alexander did a good job years ago but not lately.

    Alexander is the reporter, as explained by a reporter from the Greensboro newspaper on a local radio show, that continued to ask Amato about the football loss to Akron even after the following week’s game was over. Finally after Alexander hounded him for days Amato gave the comment about different academic standards which Alexander and others in the media made it sound like that was Amato’s initial response(and excuse) to the loss immediately after the game.

    In fact Amato actually avoided making such comments until Alexander finally hounded him enough into the response.

    Let’s face it sooner or later the unfair State bashing has and will continue to be the bottom line charateristic of the News & Observer’s relationship with our school.

  23. Ed89 08/26/2008 at 7:11 AM #

    ^^^Dewitt committed to Missouri, according to The Wolfpacker.

    Rivals and Scout don’t say anything about it…do you have any other info?

  24. Noah 08/26/2008 at 8:25 AM #

    Except the government won’t bail you out if you make stupid business decisions.

    The government won’t bail out the local S&L either. You have to be “too big to fail.”

  25. EverettBeez 08/26/2008 at 1:41 PM #

    those plastic bags are great for poop patrol, if you are a dog owner. Newspaper bags especially, its like putting on a glove . . . with no fingers . . . sort of.

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